The Pickens sentinel. [volume] (Pickens, S.C.) 1871-1903, 1887-09-15


, culture, would be accepted as bon
> tide agricultural college or agriculture
. department in the sense of the law.
The reference to Cornell Universit
proves nothing in our case, and in othc
respects is a very unfortunate one fo
3D." to invoke. In the first place
Cornell University owns it's foundation
originally to the Act of Congress of 1856:
} donating public lands to establish ant
maintain agricultural and mechanical
colleges. Under this Act the State O.
New York got nine hundred and ninet,
thousand 900, O00) acres in land scrin
This all went to Cornell. So We sec
this magnificent institution has been re.
garded as an agricultural and mechani.
cal college from its origin. TO this
splendid national donation Mr.. Cornell
added five hundred thousand dollars and
over two hundred acres of land with
buildings, for the use of the agricultural
department.
While the leading idea of the national
donation was to encourage the study of
agriculture and the mechanic arts, the
idea of Mr.. Cornell was to found an in
stltutiou where everything could be
taught that any one would be likely to
desire to learn. To carry out this idea
his friend and active coworker, Andrew
ID. White, was sent abroad to study
foreign institutions of learning, especial
ly those splendid institutions, the Ger
man polytechnic schools. l know
whereof l speak, because I had occasion
then to meet Prof. White for the first
time, and to show him through and
furnish him the documents relative to
the organization Of one of the very best
OF these schools. The result has been,
perhaps, the most complete university
IN tho strict sense Of the term that the
country contains.
But how has the agricultural depart
ment, the very "leading object" for
which Cornell was founded, hourished?
According to the catalogue of 1867,
out OF o29 students there were only 81
students of agriculture. The senior class
OF y! had only one studying agriculture;
the Junior OF l45, only 7; the sophomore
OF It's, only 8; the freshman of 1923, only
10; and then special students, making
out the 81. We see then, in an institu
ton like Cornell, founded originally
manly as an agricultural college, with
an endowment such rs few other insti-
tutlons IN the land possess, and the pet
OF the great State of New York, how the
agricultural department. fails to accom-
pllsh the purpose for which it was
founded.
L believe VIC would find approximately
the same state of things with all the agri-
cultural anneXes in the country. 1t is
only the agricultural colleges that are
separate and apart from othnr institu-
tions, such as in AIichica: Kansas,
anu more srec'F" ri, that
we fir nrnosno
20 Can we,
u ..Sonably hope
IL onange this sIate on facts, and make a
, hourishing agricultural annex in con-
nection with the State University? Can
we hope to succeed where Cornell has
! failed?
~ 80" undertakes to refute Mr..
Ihomass estimate of the proportion of
the State taxes paid by the farmers.
presume we have no exact data,
either IN the comptroller generals Office
or elsewhere, to show the exact amount
| OF the burden of taxation borne by the
farmers or any other one class, and it is,
perhaps well that we should not have,
But would remark, in the first place
that the $780, ,3l2 State taxes does notb
any means represent the entire tax paid
by the people of the State. They have
IN addition to pay county, township and
municipal taxes, and here they get no
! assistance from railroads or phosphate
royalties. These presume were in
clnded i'll Mr.. Thomuss estimate. In
the next place, L insist that the farmers
pay indirectly q very considerable pro-
portion both OF the railroad tax and the
phosphate royalty. [ do not know to
what extent the price of land phosphates,
used chiefly by our farmers, may be
affected by tie royalty on water phos-
phates,- which, ] believe, are mostly
shipped outside the State.
But it will be remembered that not
very long since, when Capt. Tillman
proposed to increase this royalty to pro-
cure fund to establish the agricultural
college, great outcry was made by
these same opponents of the college on
the ground that it would be an addition
al burden on the farmer. But now it
seems to suit them to forget this, and
pretend that this royalty is not paid by
the farmer. AS to the railroad tax "D."
is entirely too well informed as to tho
burden borne by our people by tariff
taxation, as he has recently shown by his
| N'NSSllSlip ttl UlSlCo "IlIlcIl SlSCWuGGC, not
to know that this railroad tax comes in
directly out of the pockets of those who
use the railroads. The farmers whose
produce is carried to market by rail, and
whose supplies are brought back to them
by rail, assist in paying this tax.
insist then that the figures cited by
cd" from the comptroller generals re-
port do not give even an approximate
idea Of the burden of taxation that our
farmers have to bear; and that Mr..
Thomas is likely, upon the whole, nearer
correct than he is.
But cd" admits that "South Carolina
has always been, and most probably
always will be, an agricultural State, SO
that her chief wealth will be derived di-
rccty from the soil by the toll and sweat
of large proportion of her people"
ShOuld we not then provide for the cdu-
cation and Improvement of this "large
proportion of our people, will not say
instead Of, but as well as for the "gener.
al literary, scientific and polite culture"
of the few who intend to be preachers,
doctors and lawyers? | do not object,